In addition to celebrating the horror genre's past and present every October, the Salem Horror Fest also celebrates the diverse voices of the genre all year long with special events and experiences. This year is no exception, as Salem Horror Fest has announced the first Women with Guts conference, which will take place this May and showcase talented women from the horror genre, including Dr. Rebekah McKendry, Chelsea Stardust, Ashlee Blackwell, Andrea Subissati, Sady Doyle, Alison Lang, and Alexandra West.

The Women with Guts horror conference will take place from Friday, May 8th to Sunday, May 10th at the Salem Waterfront Hotel. More guests and the full event schedule will be announced soon, and we'll be sure to keep Daily Dead readers updated on future details. In the meantime, we have the roster of announced guests below, and for more information, be sure to visit Salem Horror Fest's official website:

"Women with Guts
Friday, May 8 - Sunday, May 10
Salem Waterfront Hotel

Women dominate the center stage of horror as part of a new genre conference presented by Salem Horror Fest. Female creators from film, tv, podcasts and print will descend upon the notorious witch city for a series of screenings, panels, and lectures with opportunities to party and network. Buy Tickets

Guests & Speakers Include:

Ashlee Blackwell (writer and producer of Shudder’s Horror Noire: A Black History of Horror, creator of Graveyard Shift Sisters, and professor at St. Joseph’s University teaching a class titled Resistance Through Horror: Aught Horror Films)

Sady Doyle (author of Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power, and Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear… and Why)

Alison Lang (Editor of Women with Guts: Horror Heroines in Film, TV, and Print from Rue Morgue Library, published in Satanic Panic: Pop Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s)

Dr. Rebekah McKendry (Host of Shock Waves and Nightmare University podcasts on the Fangoria network, director of Psycho Granny and All the Creatures Were Stirring, film professor at University of Southern California, former marketing director of Fangoria and editor of Blumhouse Productions)

Stacie Ponder (Creator of Final Girl blog, host of Gaylords of Darkness, published in The 1990s Teen Horror Cycle: Final Girls and New Hollywood Formula by Alex West)

Chelsea Stardust (Director of Satanic Panic and Into the Darkness: All That We Destroy)

Andrea Subissati (Editor of Rue Morgue Magazine, host of The Faculty of Horror, author of When There’s No More Room in Hell: The Sociology of the Living Dead, published in The Undead and Theology, The Canadian Horror Film: Terror of the Soul, Yuletide Terror: Christmas Horror On Film and Television, and co-founder of The Black Museum)

Alexandra West (Host of The Faculty of Horror, author of Films of New French Extremity: Visceral Horror and National Identity, The 1990s Teen Horror Cycle: Final Girls and New Hollywood Formula, published in The Supernatural Cinema of Guillermo del Torro: Critical Essays, Art of the Title, Offscreen Film Journal)

Additional guests and schedule of events to be announced soon."

  • Derek Anderson
    About the Author - Derek Anderson

    Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.

    When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.